Summary in Seconds:
America’s religious landscape is changing—and changing faster than many people realize. Christianity is expected to remain the country’s largest religious tradition for years to come, but its share of the population is likely to continue shrinking, while the religiously unaffiliated, or “nones,” grow substantially. At the same time, immigration is bringing greater visibility and growth to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other faiths. Yet the story is not simply one of religion disappearing. Many Americans who leave organized religion continue to hold spiritual beliefs or practices, while technology and the wellness movement are creating new ways of finding meaning and community. If current trends continue, the America of 2070 could be far more religiously diverse—and far less defined by a single religious tradition—than the America we know today.
What Is the Future of Religion in America?
If trends in religious switching continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population within a few decades.
In 1741, throughout the thirteen American colonies, a young preacher named Jonathan Edwards [1] looked out at a society he believed was drifting dangerously away from its religious foundations. Americans, he complained, were pursuing wealth, enjoying themselves on the Sabbath, questioning traditional teachings, and even wondering whether good works might help a person reach heaven.
Edwards responded with one of the most famous—and frightening—sermons in American religious history, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. He warned that sinners were hanging over the fires of hell by nothing more than a thread, sustained only by God’s mercy. His dramatic message helped ignite the Great Awakening [2], a powerful revival of Christian faith and practice that swept through the colonies during much of the eighteenth century.
Nearly three centuries later, the religious landscape of the United States looks very different. If Edwards could return today and examine the latest research on American religion, he might be surprised not only by how much Christianity has changed, but also by how dramatically the country’s religious map could change in the decades ahead.
According to the Pew Research Center’s [3] analysis of religious trends in the United States, the central question is no longer whether Christianity’s share of the population will decline. The more interesting question is how far that decline will go.
As recently as the early 1990s, roughly nine out of ten American adults identified as Christian. By 2020, however, Christians accounted for about 64% of Americans of all ages. During those three decades, millions of Americans left Christianity and joined the growing population of people who describe themselves as atheist [4], agnostic [5], or having “nothing in particular” as their religion.
This group is commonly called the religiously unaffiliated [6], or simply the “nones.” Their rise is one of the most important changes taking place in American religious life.
A Changing Religious Map
To explore what the future might look like, Pew researchers constructed several demographic scenarios rather than making a single prediction. Their models considered factors such as religious switching [7], the transmission of religion from parents to children, fertility, and immigration.
The results were striking.
Under every scenario, Christianity’s share of the U.S. population declines. The difference between the scenarios is mainly a matter of how quickly and how far that decline occurs.
If religious switching were to stop completely after 2020—a deliberately unrealistic scenario—Christians would still constitute a slight majority of Americans in 2070, at about 54%.
But if current patterns of religious switching continue, Christianity’s share could fall to approximately 46% by 2070. Under another scenario that researchers considered particularly consistent with recent trends, the Christian share could decline to about 39%. And if the proportion of Christians leaving the faith continues to increase without reaching a limit, Christians could account for only about 35% of the population by 2070.
In other words, Christianity would remain a major force in American society, but it would no longer represent a majority of the population.
That would mark an extraordinary transformation in a country whose culture, history, institutions, and traditions have been deeply influenced by Christianity.
The Rise of the “Nones”
At the same time, the religiously unaffiliated are moving in the opposite direction.
The growth of the “nones” is particularly strong among younger Americans. Many young adults raised in religious households do not retain the religious identity of their parents. Religious identity appears to be becoming less “sticky”: growing numbers of young people feel free to leave the faith in which they were raised, while relatively few unaffiliated young adults move in the opposite direction and adopt Christianity.
This generational pattern matters because today’s young adults will eventually become tomorrow’s parents and grandparents. As religious affiliation is passed less consistently from one generation to the next, the change can reinforce itself over time.
Pew’s projections suggest that, depending on how switching develops, the unaffiliated could represent roughly one-third to more than half of the American population by 2070. Under some faster-disaffiliation scenarios, they could eventually become the largest group in the country.
Yet becoming unaffiliated does not necessarily mean becoming hostile to religion or completely abandoning spirituality.
Many Americans who do not identify with an organized religion still believe in God, a universal spirit, a soul, or some form of spiritual reality. Some may reject religious institutions while continuing to search for meaning, purpose, connection, or transcendence.
This distinction is important. The decline of religious affiliation does not necessarily mean the disappearance of spirituality. Instead, spirituality may increasingly take forms that are less connected to traditional religious institutions.
A More Diverse America
The future religious map of the United States will not be shaped only by the decline of Christianity and the rise of the unaffiliated. America is also becoming more religiously diverse.
Immigration is an important part of this transformation. Over the past several decades, immigrants arriving in the United States have increasingly come from regions of the world where Christianity is not the dominant religion. As a result, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other faith traditions are becoming more visible parts of American society.
Islam is expected to experience particularly significant growth. Demographic projections suggest that the Muslim population could become larger than the Jewish population in the United States by the middle of the century.
Hinduism and Buddhism are also expected to grow, while smaller religious communities—including Sikhs, Jains, Bahá’ís, and followers of various folk and other traditions—may increase substantially as well.
These communities will not necessarily replace Christianity. Rather, they will add new layers to an already diverse religious landscape.
The America of the future may therefore be less accurately described as a Christian country with a collection of religious minorities. Instead, it may increasingly resemble a religious mosaic, with Christianity as one large piece among many, alongside Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, other faiths, and the rapidly growing unaffiliated population.
Why Are These Changes Happening?
Several forces are working together.
One is religious switching. Americans, particularly younger adults, are more willing than previous generations to reconsider the religious traditions in which they were raised. Some leave organized religion altogether, while others move from one religious tradition to another.
Another factor is immigration. New Americans bring religious traditions from around the world, enriching the country’s religious diversity.
Demography also matters. Differences in fertility and age structure can influence the size of religious groups over time. However, Pew’s modeling suggests that religious switching is especially important in explaining the decline of Christianity’s share of the population.
The transmission of religion from parents to children is another critical factor. When parents are less likely to pass their religious identity to their children, religious affiliation can gradually weaken across generations.
Technology and culture may also influence how Americans experience religion. The internet, social media, smartphones, and digital communities have created new ways to explore beliefs, participate in worship, meditate, pray, or connect with people who share similar spiritual interests.
Beyond Traditional Religion
Perhaps one of the most fascinating developments is the emergence of spiritual practices outside traditional religious institutions.
Consider the modern wellness movement [8]. Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, retreats, spiritual coaching, and various forms of holistic living are often presented primarily as ways to improve physical or mental well-being. Yet for some people, these practices also provide something traditionally associated with religion: a sense of meaning, community, ritual, identity, and connection to something larger than oneself.
Digital technology may take this development even further. A person can now attend a religious service online, listen to a spiritual teacher on a podcast, meditate with a smartphone application, join a virtual community, or explore religious traditions from around the world without ever entering a house of worship.
Religion, in other words, may not simply be disappearing. It may be changing its address.
Instead of being concentrated in churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and other traditional institutions, some forms of spirituality may increasingly exist in homes, online communities, wellness centers, social networks, and individual daily practices.
What Do the Projections Really Tell Us?
It is important, however, not to mistake demographic projections for predictions carved in stone.
Pew researchers themselves emphasize that their scenarios are not intended to predict exactly what will happen. They are exercises showing what could happen if particular trends continue.
And history has a way of surprising demographers.
Religious change can be affected by wars, economic crises, political upheavals, social movements, immigration patterns, natural disasters, technological revolutions, and unexpected cultural changes. A major revival could alter the trajectory of religious affiliation just as an unforeseen social transformation could accelerate secularization [9].
The Great Awakening itself is a useful reminder. In Edwards’s time, American religious life underwent a dramatic transformation within a relatively short period. There is no reason to assume that the twenty-first century will be completely predictable.
Indeed, a new religious revival is not impossible. Nor is it impossible that secularization will continue more rapidly than expected.
The future may contain elements of both.
A New Religious America
What, then, might the religious map of the United States look like several decades from now?
Rather than trying to assign exact percentages to an uncertain future, it may be more useful to imagine the kind of religious society these trends could produce.
America will probably be more diverse and less dominated by a single religious tradition. Christianity is likely to remain the country’s largest religious tradition for some time, but its share may continue to decline. The unaffiliated will probably represent a much larger portion of the population, while Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other faiths are likely to become increasingly visible, particularly in communities shaped by immigration and younger generations.
At the same time, the boundary between being “religious” and “spiritual” may become less clear. Many Americans may continue to believe in God or embrace spiritual practices without belonging to a traditional religious institution.
This could represent one of the deepest changes in America’s religious life.
For centuries, religious identity was often inherited. A child was born into a family, raised in a particular tradition, attended its religious institutions, and often remained connected to that tradition throughout life.
That pattern is weakening.
Increasingly, religious identity may become something people choose, change, combine, reinterpret, or even reject. A person may move from Christianity to another faith, from Christianity to no religion, from no religion back to a faith, or from formal religion toward a more individualized form of spirituality.
The result may be a society in which religious identity is more fluid than it was in the past. Instead of belonging to one tradition for an entire lifetime, people may explore different beliefs and practices at different stages of their lives.
In that sense, the American religious landscape of the future may be less like a fixed map and more like a living mosaic—constantly changing as new generations reshape it.
And this brings us back to Jonathan Edwards.
In 1741, Edwards looked at America and feared that the religious foundations of society were slipping away. His response was not to predict the distant future but to confront what he saw happening around him. The Great Awakening that followed demonstrated just how dramatically religious life could change within a single generation.
Nearly three centuries later, the direction of change is different, but the uncertainty remains familiar.
America may continue along a path of secularization. It may experience another religious revival. Traditional institutions may lose influence while new forms of spirituality emerge outside them. Or several of these developments may occur at the same time.
We simply do not know yet.
What we can see is that the religious America of the future is unlikely to look exactly like the America of the past.
And perhaps that is the most interesting lesson of all: religion in America may not be disappearing so much as being transformed—changing who practices it, how they practice it, and what it means to believe.
Notes
1. Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was an American Christian preacher and theologian who became one of the most influential figures of the eighteenth-century religious revival in colonial America. His powerful sermons, including Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, helped inspire the Great Awakening.
2. Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was a series of Christian religious revivals that swept through the American colonies during the 1730s and 1740s. It emphasized personal faith, emotional religious experiences, repentance, and a direct relationship with God rather than relying solely on established churches and traditions.
3. Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan research organization that conducts surveys and studies on social, demographic, religious, political, and cultural trends, particularly in the United States and around the world. Its research is widely used to understand changes in Americans’ religious beliefs, practices, and affiliations.
4. Atheist
An atheist is a person who does not believe that any gods exist. Atheism is generally a position about belief in God or gods rather than a complete system of beliefs about morality, meaning, or how people should live.
5.Agnostic
An agnostic is a person who believes that the existence of God or gods is unknown or perhaps impossible to know with certainty. Some people are both agnostic and atheist, meaning they do not believe in God but also do not claim to know with absolute certainty that no God exists.
6.Religiously Unaffiliated (the “Nones”)
The religiously unaffiliated are people who do not identify with a particular organized religion. They include atheists, agnostics, and people who say they have “nothing in particular” as their religion; they are called the “nones” because they select “none” when asked about their religious affiliation.
7. Religious Switching
Religious switching refers to changing one’s religious affiliation during one’s lifetime—for example, moving from one religious tradition to another or becoming religiously unaffiliated. It is an important factor in changing the religious composition of a population, especially in countries where people are free to choose or change their religious identity.
8. Modern Wellness Movement
The modern wellness movement is a broad cultural trend that emphasizes physical, mental, emotional, and sometimes spiritual well-being through practices such as exercise, healthy eating, meditation, mindfulness, and stress management. For some people, wellness practices can provide a sense of meaning or spiritual connection without requiring membership in an organized religion.
9. Secularization
Secularization is the gradual process by which religion becomes less influential in a society’s institutions, culture, and everyday life. It can also involve declining religious participation or belief and a growing tendency to base personal and social decisions on secular rather than religious ideas.
References
1. Henderson, Alex. “US ‘Unchurching’ Marks The ‘Fastest Religious Shift In Modern History’.” msn, 26 December, 2025.
2. O’Reilly, David. “What Is the Future of Religion in America?” Trust Magazine,7 February, 2023.
https://www.pew.org/en/trust/archive/winter-2023/what-is-the-future-of-religion-in-america
3. Contreras, Russell. “The Great Unchurching Of America.” Axios, 26 December, 2025.
https://www.axios.com/2025/12/26/great-unchurching-america-religiously-unaffiliated
4. AI Generated. “The Future of Religion in the U.S.” AI Overview, 27 December, 2025.